Fantastically confused about DNS

Hi, I'm a total beginner for DNS configuration, and have found no good explanations for a beginner on this topic. I have read about 6 different tutorials from books, guides, and websites about DNS, but they all seem to be copies of each other's information, which is catered to people who must already know all this stuff!

I can't see the way all these configuration files and settings between different hosts work together, because no tutorial I've found has done a good job of outlining it in such a way. Their examples are just too complicated for me, and I just don't know how else to learn this...

From a beginner's perspective, here are some of the questions I have:

1) Does every computer in a network have to have a named.conf file? What about the resolv.conf file? What about nsswitch.conf? What about zone files?

2) I saw a confusing example zone file whose SOA was super.confused.com, and it had an NS record of super.confused.com....what!? It points to itself as a nameserver...how does that work?

3) It seems that every zone file example I've seen just points to another name server through an NS record. There seems to be a million levels of indirection in terms of having NS records to a host that would have zone files with more NS records to a host with more zone files.....where and how does it end???

4) What in the world is a zone? I swear, I just don't get it...

5) I think my confusion is coming from the fact that I don't understand how a request for a domain name is actually converted...maybe somebody could walk me through the process...let's say I have a domain called mine.com, and 4 hosts, mine.com, first.mine.com, second.mine.com, third.mine.com. How does a random person that has nothing to do with my website but who wants to visit, say, first.mine.com, discover the IP address of that particular host?

Can somebody please give me an example of all the configuration files necessary for a very simple local network with, say, 3 hosts on it? What would the configuration files on each of the 3 hosts be?

I can imagine people who know this DNS stuff probably can't believe how stupid the questions I'm asking must sound but, honestly, this is the best understanding I can possibly gain on my own at this point...I don't know how to clear up the confusion apart from seeing a super-basic example that hopefully some of you could provide.

If you DNS experts could share some of your knowledge and help me out, I'd TOTALLY appreciate it.

Thanks so much.

 

 

 

 

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